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Reading Autism
James McGrath,
Leeds Metropolitan University
Michael Fitzgerald, Autism and Creativity: Is There A Link Between Autism in Men
and Exceptional Ability? Brunner-Routledge, Hove and New York, 2004. Hard
cover ISBN 1-58391-213-4. 294 pp. £29.99.
Michael Fitzgerald, The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger’s Syndrome and the
Arts. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London and Philadelphia, 2005. Paper
ISBN 1-84310-3346. 255 pp. £13.95 / $19.95.
Despite the titles, these books are effectively studies of autism and artists.
Michael Fitzgerald (Henry Marsh Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Trinity
College, Dublin) discusses commonplace notions of ‘genius’ in terms of the autistic
spectrum, presenting case studies of deceased writers, philosophers, musicians and
painters (including Spinoza, Mozart, William and Jack Butler Yeats, Lowry, Orwell and
Warhol), all of whom, he proposes via reference to biographical accounts, suffered with
Asperger’s syndrome (ASP) or ‘high-functioning autism’ (HFA), terms he uses
interchangeably. His first book (2004) is an extensively referenced, substantially-argued
academic tome; the second (2005), a more reader-friendly but also more ambitious
expansion of the premises of the first, applying the same methodologies to ‘diagnose’ a
wider sample of celebrated individuals. It is reflective of the continued debate
surrounding diagnosis that, since Lorna Wing (1981) first discussed Hans Asperger’s
findings (published 1944) in terms of a ‘syndrome’, several experts have, as Fitzgerald
acknowledges, suggested slightly different diagnostic criteria (2005, p.11). He refers
“social impairments”; “narrow interests”; “repetitive routines”; “speech and language
problems”; “non-verbal communication problems”; and “motor clumsiness” (2004, p.28).
Fitzgerald is, to quote his own phrase “diagnosing the dead” (2005, p.25). However,
while he is, in his terms as a psychiatrist, “diagnosing” autism in these iconic
biographical subjects, when considered from perspectives of cultural and literary theory,
this methodology amounts to reading autism: relying on (mostly second-hand) written
accounts and foregrounding examples of relevant information. As a psychiatrist,
Fitzgerald is in an official position to diagnose HFA/ASP; thus, his arguments carry
considerable authority. However, these are conclusions based on secondary verbal
evidence, as distinct from consultation, and he acknowledges that diagnosis remains
somewhat inconclusive: “we don’t have a precise cut-off or blood test to make the
diagnosis” (2004, p.35). This essay critically reviews Fitzgerald’s books and considers
what perspectives and methodologies of interdisciplinary literary study might add to
discussions of autism and creativity. In keeping with the scientific spirit of his work, the
essay experiments with Fitzgerald’s conceptual framework by effectively ‘reading
autism’ in fictional characters in two literary texts: Forster’s Howards End and Beckett’s
Krapp’s Last Tape. However, like Fitzgerald’s book, the essay discusses only
‘high-functioning’ autism, in which, manifestations of the condition can be slight enough to be,
indeed, debatable.
From the outset, it is important to distinguish HFA/ASP from more extreme
neurological impairments of ‘classic autism’. Severe manifestations of early infantile
autism were influentially studied by Leo Kanner (1943); within a year, Asperger,
of children with similar impairments, but (generally) higher IQs. Until the 1980s,
Kanner’s observations tended to dominate connotations of ‘autism’. In the last three
decades, however, medical (and media) interest in ‘Asperger’s syndrome’ has grown
enormously, expanding definitions of ‘the autistic spectrum’ to the extent that these
might encompass individuals unlikely to have been diagnosed autistic by Kanner.
Fitzgerald’s interest in ‘high-functioning’ autism is, thus, predominantly influenced by
Asperger’s terms. There is, however, a fundamental methodological contrast: Asperger
described symptoms in individuals he personally observed; Fitzgerald uses a sample of
biographies. Another, somewhat ambiguous, distinction between ‘Asperger’s syndrome’
as discussed by Fitzgerald and Asperger’s own case studies is the severity of
manifestation. Asperger’s work is expanded but diluted by Fitzgerald insofar as he, like
the former (of whom, Frith notes), appears “not as fascinated by the more severe clinical
manifestations of autism as […] the milder ones” (annotation to Asperger, p.67). Yet
though Fitzgerald rejects the term “mild autism” in regard to his subjects (2004, p.226),
the manifestations he discusses appear “milder” than those observed by Asperger. In his
seminal paper “‘Autistic psychopathy’ in childhood” (1944), Asperger presented studies
of four children, all of whom had been referred to the University Paediatric Clinic in
Vienna (where he conducted his research), primarily due to behavioral difficulties in
school. Yet none of Fitzgerald’s subjects are reported here to have been even temporarily
excluded from school, nor were they referred to specialists during childhood, despite
behavioral and learning difficulties. Cultural context is significant here, and the resulting
ambiguity is precisely what enables Fitzgerald to argue that, for example, Kant or
because the condition had yet to be identified. Most of Fitzgerald’s subjects died before
the era of psychoanalysis, which itself preceded by three decades the first nominal
recognition of ‘autism’ in 1911 (by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler).
Complying with current mainstream psychiatric perspectives (advanced by
Asperger: p.84, 86), Fitzgerald discusses autism as a congenital disorder. This reflects the
now authoritative consensus that it is not, as Bruno Bettelheim speculated in a theory
subsequently discredited, a reflection of parenting (see Sicile-Kira, p.6-7), but a genetic
inevitability (the aetiology of which, as Fitzgerald notes, researchers are still “a long way
from elucidating fully”, 2005, p.16). Outlining his theory of the relationship between
creativity and autism, he disregards psychoanalysis of artistic expression as “grossly
reductionistic” (p.13), and dismisses Behaviorist approaches as “absurd
environmentalism” (p.19-20). He states: “We do not know how a ‘package’ of genes
expresses itself through a work of artistic genius. Certainly the environment plays a very
minor role” (p.16). Yet Fitzgerald’s focus is on the autistic traits, and, closely related to
these, the “artistic genius” of his subjects, rather than their actual “work”; and while
environmental factors may not cause autism, they are essential to Fitzgerald’s criteria for
defining and identifying ‘autistic’ behavior, presenting causes for diagnosis. In this, the
environment actually plays a major role in his case studies. Accounts of his subjects’
“social behavior” form the first, generally most substantial, sections in Fitzgerald’s
outlining of “Indicators of Asperger’s syndrome”.
Fitzgerald’s studies imply some undefined paradigm of a ‘normal’ behavior,
against which, the eccentricities he discusses are measured. However, his focus on the
of what constitutes ‘normal’ or, to adapt his term, non-impaired social behavior. The
‘autistic’ characteristics he reports in his subjects relate less to inherently deviant traits
than the fact that various, quoted observers considered these individuals odd. For
example, using Glendinning (1998) as his source, Fitzgerald considers Swift’s initial
visits to Button’s Coffee House in London. “[U]nacquainted with anyone there”, he was
nicknamed “the mad parson”, and would, as one observer described, “walk backward and
forward at a good pace for half an hour or an hour, without speaking to any mortal”
before eventually leaving “without having said a word to anyone” (Glendinning in
Fitzgerald, p.33). Fitzgerald’s reading of this as evidence of social impairment is not
unreasonable, but the description, if read on more general humanist terms, also suggests
the behavior of an individual seeking, and literally, waiting for, acceptance in a new
social milieu. Fitzgerald quotes the anecdote to conclude his account of Swift’s supposed
social impairments; however, he does not refer to the information, on the subsequent
page in Glendinning’s biography, that Swift persisted in his visits, and was “within a few
months to be an intimate of the distinguished Button’s coffee-house group” (p.78). More
pertinently, Glendinning recognizes the social context of Swift’s attention-seeking, yet
uneasy presence there; the sophisticated observers being initially unaware of his
publications (which soon earned him their respect), he was first seen, she speculates, as
what he also was: “the awkward provincial outsider” (p.78).
The somewhat under-acknowledged significance of social factors in Fitzgerald’s
diagnoses of autistic behavior becomes especially important when he discusses what are
effectively the lifestyle implications of the writer or artist’s role. In summarizing the
isolation, including his surmising that Wittgenstein “felt that nothing was worth doing
except producing great philosophical works” (2004, p.89), Melville’s tendencies to be
“aloof” and “reclusive” (2005, p.52), Kant’s “autonomous, self-reliant” character
(quoting Kuehn, p.122), and Lowry’s need for “personal solitude” (p.223). The most
pertinent citation of this, however, is Fitzgerald’s quotation of Lubin’s note that Van
Gogh “stressed the importance of his self-isolating proclivities” and “praised his
alienation as a necessary part of his creative life” (2005, p.207). This highlights an
obviousness that Fitzgerald overlooks: artists may, like many people, work more
effectively without distraction. When considering this correlation of the environmental
and the essential for the artist, some of the psychoanalytical terms that Fitzgerald rejects
may actually be quite pertinent, for his studies have in fact an important precursor in
Jung’s essay ‘Psychology and Literature’ (1930/1950):
The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him. […] To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.
It is as though each of us were endowed at birth with a certain capital of energy. The strongest force in our make-up will seize and all but monopolize this energy […]. In this way, the creative force can drain the human impulses to such a degree that the personal ego must develop all sorts of bad qualities – ruthlessness, selfishness and vanity […].
[The] creative work arises from the unconscious depths […]. The work in progress becomes the poet’s fate and determines his psychic development. It is not Goethe who creates Faust, but Faust who creates Goethe. And what is Faust but a symbol? (p.173-4).
Like Jung, Fitzgerald considers eccentricity and artistic ability as effects of a fundamental
cause. Yet while Jung attributes both to the unconscious of the artist as “collective man”
the human impulses” of such an individual. Fitzgerald, however, tends to attribute
self-isolation and creativity to HFA/ASP without considering how the former may also be a
precondition of the latter. This exemplifies a frustrating limitation of Fitzgerald’s studies:
his readiness to link the six criteria with HFA, but not each other.
Fitzgerald’s tendency to discuss each diagnostic criterion autonomously becomes
problematic when he cites his subjects’ commitment to their work as evidence of “narrow
interests” and “repetitive routines”. Used under both headings, examples of their working
habits provide such ample material that, as the books progress, his hypothesis of a link
between HFA and artistic ability becomes increasingly convincing, but this is partly the
effect of repetition. Fitzgerald makes no direct comparisons with Asperger’s own case
studies, but cross-references his subjects with each other. Given his acknowledgement of
the lack of a “precise cut-off” point for diagnosis, however, there is a hollowness to
phrases such as “W. B. Yeats, Ludwig Wittgenstein and George Orwell, all of whom had
Asperger’s syndrome…” (2005, p.15). Such cross-referencing distorts the arguments
because Fitzgerald has selected a sample consisting predominantly (2004) and
exclusively (2005) of highly successful (and productive) writers and artists. They appear
preoccupied by their work, but he discusses their “obsessions” when he is effectively
referring to their professions. Most of these individuals earned their livelihoods through
their “narrow interests”: as indeed did many of Asperger’s subjects (p.87-9). However,
Asperger also noted that “In many cases the social problems are so profound that they
overshadow everything else” (p.37). Of none of Fitzgerald’s subjects does this appear to
overshadows everything else, and it is their commitment to this that he discusses as a
social problem.
Both books are, as Fitzgerald states, “celebration[s] of persons with artistic genius
and Asperger’s syndrome” (2005, p.241), and at no point are their achievements
trivialized; rather, his studies demonstrate the social effects (ahead of the congenital
causes) of the pursuit of inspiration. In this, his subjects suggest Adorno’s observations in
the essay ‘Free Time’ (1977). Considering the dialectics of work and leisure, the Marxist
philosopher sardonically writes:
Organized freedom is compulsory. Woe betide you if you have no hobby, no pastime; then you are a swot or an old-timer, an eccentric, and you will fall prey to ridicule in a society which foists upon you what your free time should be. (p.190).
Fitzgerald shows his subjects rejecting leisure in favor of work, and indeed, being viewed
as ‘swots’ and ‘eccentrics’ because of it.
If it is, however, possible to consider these case studies without referring to the
subjects’ achievements, how convincing is Fitzgerald’s application of the other criteria?
In places, it is tenuous; partly, again, due to his dismissal of environmental factors, and in
the second book, his under-edited, lecture note-like prose. He quotes the following,
clearly proud, description of Jack Butler Yeats, from the painter’s father:
My son’s affection for Sligo comes out in one small detail. He is ever careful to preserve a certain roll and lurch in his gait, that being the mark of the Sligo man. (see 2005, p.217).
Fitzgerald immediately challenges, with astonishing simplicity, that “This is probably
sense of belonging that would contradict, by definition, notions of ‘autism’ as derived
from the Greek autos (self). However, despite the conspicuousness of such assumptions,
Professor Fitzgerald’s authority as a psychiatrist, and furthermore, the National Autistic
Society’s support of this book make its arguments difficult to dismiss. Dr. Judith Gould,
director of the Society’s diagnostic unit, commented: “[Fitzgerald’s] theory makes sense,
because one of the diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s is ‘patchy’ ability, where some skills
are better than others” (see Iggulden).
Fitzgerald’s cases studies make depressing reading; not because of any judgment
on HFA itself, but because Fitzgerald presents each case to foreground the autistic
characteristics at the expense of the ‘neurotypical’ (neurologically ‘normal’), suggesting
that the condition defined every aspect of these individuals’ lives. In viewing them,
implicitly, from a perspective more aligned to the social conventions they eschewed,
these books consist largely of descriptions of individuals being misunderstood and often
ridiculed by their peers in a manner comparable with that identified by Adorno. However,
Fitzgerald’s basic aim is nonetheless admirable: to promote wider social understanding of
HFA. Asperger briefly mentioned distinguished artistic abilities in some subjects (p.72,
89), but gave far greater prominence to their aptitude for mathematics, this being part of
his testing criteria (p.44-5, 55-6). Fitzgerald proposes, justifiably, that these books will
challenge the stereotype that equates Asperger’s syndrome “with engineering and
mathematics” (2005, p.241).
A startling effect of both books is that almost each case study suggests
characteristics noted incidentally in virtually any biography of a creative individual. Of
unmentioned by Fitzgerald, Auden spoke of having lived his childhood in “a dream
country”, commenting in 1970:
It is no doubt psychologically significant that my sacred world was autistic – that is to say, I had no wish to share it with others nor could I have done so. (see Davenport-Hines, p.19).
Auden’s biographer discusses this and the poet’s numerous other, similar comments over
three pages, noting that Dr. G. A. Auden, his father, was an early researcher in autistic
phenomena, and that Auden himself had an interest in the subject. However,
Davenport-Hines, after acknowledging the “different meaning now” of the term (he was writing in
the 1990s), decides: “It would be reckless to claim that Auden was an autistic child: it is
enough to report that as an adult he considered his imaginary childhood world to have
been autistic and that […] he referred on several occasions to autism.” (p.21). He thus
appears to remain open-minded on this, but provides nonetheless a four-hundred page
biography in which, at no point, Auden’s statements regarding his own autistic traits are
allowed to define the chronicling of his life.
Although Fitzgerald’s focus in these books is restricted to renowned artists, his
application of the diagnostic criteria utilizes many incidental human characteristics, such
as meticulousness, punctuality and the keeping of notebooks. How commonplace, then,
are instances of ‘autistic’ behavior in the culture around us, and how readily can they be
identified? One way of exploring this is to apply Fitzgerald’s approach to fictitious
characters. Two adjacent books were randomly pulled off a shelf: Forster’s novel
Howards End (1910) and Beckett’s Complete Dramatic Works. While the latter contains
eponymous, single character in Krapp’s Last Tape (1958), the first example, Mrs Wilcox
in Howards End, is a less obvious candidate, primarily because she is a woman.
Asperger’s syndrome is greatly more prevalent in males than females, though it is
noteworthy that Asperger’s own sample (1944) consisted of four boys. Similarly,
Fitzgerald’s twenty-six case studies include only one woman, Simone Weil (2005). This
section of the essay, however, does not attempt to speculate on the prevalence of HFA,
nor indeed to ‘diagnose’ these characters, but to simply consider, applying the criteria as
used by Fitzgerald, how immediately its manifestation might be identified in subjects on
a purely textual basis, this being the methodological limit of his use of biographies.
Fitzgerald dismisses the Barthesian premise of ‘the death of the Author’ as used by
literary critics as “clearly absurd” (2004, p.16), yet, in the basest manner, the death of the
author is a prerequisite of each of his case studies. Although Fitzgerald undertakes a brief
diagnostic analysis of Conan Doyle’s creation of Sherlock Holmes as a reflection of the
author’s own supposed HFA/ASP (2005, p.84-6), the following discussion will not
speculate the ontological perspectives of Forster and Beckett, since this would distract
from the central purpose of reading autism on the basis of single texts, treated thus as
definitive representations of the characters discussed: in this, the value of literary texts as
means of such analysis is compared with that of biographies, as utilized by Fitzgerald.
In Howards End, Mrs Wilcox’s presence is limited, yet she displays, to varying
degrees, all six of Gillberg’s criteria. Of these, motor clumsiness is the least apparent,
though in her formative, first appearances in the novel, physical idiosyncrasies are
suggested in her tendency to “trail” rather than walk, and bring her long dress over the
at her home) eccentricity of this (Forster, p.20). The other five criteria interrelate more
complexly in limiting her communication with others. Most obvious is Mrs Wilcox’s
preoccupation with her interests: nature, and, synonymous with this, her house, Howards
End. These are linked to the further criteria of odd, repetitive routines, for example,
trailing the meadow “with her hands full of the hay”, which she repeatedly sniffs (p.20,
36). It is only when Mrs Wilcox is at home at Howards End that she is able to enjoy her
interests and the routines associated with them, and only there does she appear content.
When Margaret uninvitedly calls on her in London, Mrs Wilcox is tired, slightly irritable,
and in bed. When Margaret comments “I thought of you as one of the early risers”, she
replies “At Howards End – yes; there is nothing to get up for in London” (p.80).
Manifestations of speech and language problems might also be considered in the
context of narrow interests, and, furthermore, as social impairments (though Fitzgerald
does not pursue this link). An advantage of reading autistic traits in fictitious characters,
rather than deceased artists (especially those who worked in non-verbal modes) is the
presentation of their conversation. An epistemological problem with the latter approach is
exemplified in Fitzgerald’s claim that “The language that Satie used provides evidence of
autism” (2005, p.176), qualified not by its quotation, but reference to a summary of it in
Volta’s 1996 commentary for The Collected Writings of Erik Satie. Literary texts provide
fixed, yet contextually varied, evidence of a character’s speech. In this, might they form
more reliable examples of this important dimension of HFA?
It is in the manner and content of her speech that Mrs Wilcox’s mysterious, and in
Howards End, singular perspective on the world, is most discernible. Her first reported
There aren’t such things” (p.36). Thus, Mrs Wilcox silences an argument between her
sons with an aphorism on the limitations of language that might have momentarily
silenced even Wittgenstein, who, Fitzgerald states eleven times in the second book
(referring to the first) “also had Asperger’s Syndrome”. Mrs Wilcox’s own speech,
however, is itself plain, occasionally astounding her family (see p.37). Her enigmatic
statements cause even Margaret, the most sympathetic other character, to be “startled and
a little annoyed” when, after some thought, Mrs Wilcox comments: “I almost think you
forget you’re a girl” (p.83). Challenged about this, she states “I cannot put things
clearly”; and, earlier in the same scene, having refused, despite Margaret’s prompts, to
reassure her that the hostility between the Wilcoxes and the Schlegels has been resolved,
she comments “I always sound uncertain over things. It is my way of speaking.”
(p.79-80). Her voice itself is also described in terms that might now suggest the “unusual voice
characteristics” of ASP (Fitzgerald, 2004, p.174): “sweet and compelling”, but with
“even, unemotional tones” and “little range of expression” (Forster, p.80). More
intriguing, however, is the subsequent specification that: “Only once had it quickened –
when she was speaking of Howards End” (p.81). Mrs Wilcox’s narrow interests might
also relate, then, to her “speech problems” and the further criterion of “non-verbal
communication problems”. She hopes that the story of the wych-elm “might interest” her
visitor, but Margaret’s responses appear both skeptical and un-interested; yet, her hostess
does not acknowledge this (p.82). When she then gives “too minute an account” of her
family’s activities, Mrs Wilcox shows no recognition that “Margaret could not bear being
Another cultural theory text that forms an insightful counterpart to Fitzgerald’s
effectively essentialist study of social eccentricities in high-achieving individuals is
Hoggart’s chapter ‘The Uprooted and the Anxious’ in The Uses of Literacy (1957,
pp.291-317). Indicating the influence of Howards End (through the character of Leonard
Bast), Hoggart outlines the socially isolating effects of autodidacticism: another pursuit
that Fitzgerald associates with HFA/ASP (2004, p.84, 175). Hoggart considers how
scholarship can leave working-class individuals alienated from both their origins and the
more middle-class company in which they find themselves, and he reads the effects of
this as manifest in various social situations. For Mrs Wilcox, however, the change was
not the result of education, but marriage. She does not appear to be a woman of
working-class origin, but has, nonetheless, married into ‘higher’ social echelons (Forster, p.36),
and appears confused by formal occasions in which her husband is not also present. This
is poignantly illustrated in her discomfort at the luncheon party, held by Margaret in her
honor. She does not “blend” with the educated, socialite others; “the atmosphere [is] one
of polite bewilderment” (p.84). The rigidly intellectual conversation alienates Mrs
Wilcox, whom “Clever talk alarmed […] and withered her delicate imaginings” (p.84).
She momentarily becomes animated at Margaret’s description of the view of the River
Oder (p.85), but when another guest disagrees with Margaret’s opinions on Böcklin’s
landscapes and asks Mrs Wilcox for hers, she appears to interpret this as a personal
criticism of her friend, causing “a chill” to fall on the conversation (p.86). Most
significant, however, is Forster’s overt summary of her personality, and how its
She and daily life were out of focus: one or the other must show blurred. And at lunch she seemed more out of focus than usual, nearer the line that divides daily life from a life that may be of greater importance. (p.86-7).
A further suggestion that Mrs Wilcox’s ‘autistic’ characteristics are aggravated by
varying social situations is apparent in her dislike of, and distractibility when, shopping:
“The din is so confusing” (p.90).
Fitzgerald concludes each case study by assessing how each individual complies
with the diagnostic criteria. Mrs Wilcox, on such terms, complies with all six. Can she,
then, justifiably be considered to ‘have’ HFA/ASP? Before considering this question
further, let us discuss a second character, Krapp: a fictitious person who displays more
obviously the characteristics as discussed by Fitzgerald. This is partially a consequence
of Krapp’s representation in a different genre. As a character created for the stage, he
displays more clearly than Mrs Wilcox what are perhaps the most socially visible signs of
the condition: the physical. This provides a further instance of how literature, particularly
drama, can serve more usefully than biography to provide examples or ‘evidence’ of a
subject’s demeanor and behavior. Fitzgerald refers, with varying degrees of certainty, to
the motor clumsiness of his subjects, but in analyzing individuals who died before the
widespread availability of the motion-camera, he has no alternative to reliance on
significant, but vague, second-hand descriptions of, for example, Melville’s tendencies to
be “incorrigibly clumsy” and “unhandy with tools” (Robertson-Lorant in Fitzgerald, p.
54), or Weil’s “clumsy way of holding chalk” (Gray in Fitzgerald, 2005, p.133).
In Beckett’s short play, Krapp twice displays motor clumsiness; he slips on the
banana skin he dropped moments earlier (Beckett, p.216), then knocks a box off the table
unusual dress, including “trousers too short for him”, “grimy white shirt open at neck”
and a “Surprising pair of dirty white boots, size ten at least, very narrow and pointed”
(p.215). Not unlike Mrs Wilcox’s indifference to her “sopping” dress, Krapp’s seemingly
unchanging attire suggests Fitzgerald’s notes of various idiosyncrasies of dress in his
subjects, relating these to both preservation of routine (2004, p.88, 187) and “problems
with touch” (2005, p.132).
Like Mrs Wilcox, Krapp might suggest ASP in his “distinctive intonation”
(Beckett, p.215). Fitzgerald frequently cites reported “unusual voice characteristics
typical of Asperger’s syndrome” in his subjects, ranging from William Butler Yeats’s
“beautiful speaking voice” (2004, p.174) to Orwell’s “flat dead voice” (Meyers in
Fitzgerald, 2005, p.91). (Whether unusual voice characteristics are believed to be related
to motor clumsiness is unclear in Fitzgerald’s accounts). Krapp is also fascinated by
words, becoming newly intrigued by the sound and meaning of the ‘viduity’ (p.219), and
commenting on the last tape: “Revelled in the word spool. [With relish.] Spooool!”
(p.222).
Krapp’s actions in the play revolve around repetitive routines, central to which are
his tapes of his own monologues. Like Mrs Wilcox’s, his repetitive routines are linked to
his narrow interests: primarily, himself and his life. Like most of Fitzgerald’s subjects,
Krapp is a published writer, and his tapes are further poetic creations. Repetition also
marks Krapp’s diet, seemingly consisting only of bananas. Though not integral to the six
criteria, unusual eating habits, as Fitzgerald notes when discussing Wittgenstein (2004,
The most ambiguous, and most intriguing suggestions of Krapp’s autism are his
social impairments and non-verbal communication. One tape, describing his regular visits
to the weir, reveals his encounter with a “dark young beauty” pushing a perambulator:
Whenever I looked in her direction she had her eyes on me. And yet when I was bold enough to speak to her – not having been introduced – she threatened to call a policeman. (p.219-220).
The specifications of Krapp’s odd demeanor (he is introduced “staring vacuously before
him” and repeatedly “peering”: p.216) suggest that he may have intimidated the woman,
or attracted her attention, by his very eccentricity. The incident suggests Krapp’s
non-verbal communication problems insofar as he does not appear to consider these
possibilities; he also ignores (despite his own adjective) the “funereal” perambulator as a
signifier that she may be otherwise attached. Yet, when reading Krapp’s autistic traits, an
important twist in the text is his conclusive comment on the incident: “As if I had designs
on her virtue! [Laugh. Pause.]” (p.220). The extent to which this is said either
sarcastically or guiltily is the director’s choice: the ‘laugh’ perhaps suggesting the former,
the ‘pause’ the latter. In suggesting sarcasm, Krapp deviates from the stereotype of
autistic individuals tending to speak on a most literal level (as Mrs Wilcox tends to do).
More pertinently, Krapp’s ambiguous exclamation leads to a question suggested
repeatedly by Fitzgerald’s case studies, but never addressed: were Swift, Wittgenstein
and Yeats (or Mrs Wilcox and Krapp) oblivious to social convention, or indifferent to it?
The two fictional characters illustrate a less frequently discussed aspect of autism
in their responses to nature; a subject repeatedly, but inconsistently, mentioned by
little sense to him” (2005, p.139), but, conversely, quotes Masefield’s recollection of
William Butler Yeats being “deeply moved by the beauty and mystery of the Sligo coast”
(2004, p.190), and notes Beethoven’s “almost religious” love of natural landscape, in
which, he compares him with Wittgenstein (2005, p.162). Furthermore, discussing Van
Gogh’s paintings, Fitzgerald writes that “Persons with Asperger’s syndrome are
fascinated by landscape and colour” (p.206). Mrs Wilcox shows comparable engagement
with nature in her intense attachment to the garden and meadows, and her belief in the
wych-elm’s healing effects, while Krapp’s most poetic recollections (in his “distinctive
intonation”) pertain to his revelatory “vision” before the “great granite rocks the foam
flying up in the light of the lighthouse” (p.220). Yet, the discordance between
Fitzgerald’s numerous citations of intense responses to landscape and his summary of
Ayers’ “autistic” indifference to nature is important, and his recognition of the
contradiction would have been valuable, for it suggests that, despite certain shared
idiosyncrasies, the personalities of individuals with HFA/ASP may vary much like those
of ‘neurotypicals’.
A further trait to which Fitzgerald devotes much attention is “naivety and
childishness”, a subheading in several case studies. Mrs Wilcox exudes this in her
“wonderful innocence” (p.99), and Krapp in his almost mystical fascinations with time,
nature and words. Again, it might have been insightful had Fitzgerald discussed “naivety”
in relation to other characteristics, especially the responses to nature, for these two traits
have long been linked in literary philosophy. In 1836, Emerson wrote:
outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. (p.995).
Considering Fitzgerald’s discussion of the Wittgenstein’s general ability to “relate
exceptionally well to children” (2004, p.80), Yeats’s “juvenile” humor (p.174),
Beethoven’s “emotional immaturity” (which “tends to go with creativity”: 2005, p.164),
and the reverence for nature shared by all three, Emerson’s speculation might yield
further insight, and in terms and language more sympathetic to artists.
So can Mrs Wilcox and Krapp, then, be considered to ‘have’ Asperger’s
syndrome? As fictitious characters, created before the terms came into medical (let alone
media) usage, such a conclusion remains anachronistic and irresolutely speculative.
Nonetheless, using Fitzgerald’s approach of selective close reading, they can be shown to
display the diagnostic criteria. Furthermore, as characters whose essences are confined to
single texts, the evidence in which their supposedly autistic traits are manifest is fixed in
a way that cannot be rivaled in biographies consisting of multitudinous, subjective
accounts by a range of commentators with different perspectives and agendas. However,
the approach used in this essay to enable reading of autism can itself be summarized as
autistic reading: predetermined by narrow interest in just one way of discussing
characters, collecting consistent examples in a routine-like, formulaic manner to sustain a
central theory. Furthermore, emphasizing the literal, it carries “speech and language
problems”, focusing on concrete, quotable statements at the expense of subtler, but, in the
fuller contexts of these works, more sustained aesthetic effects and thematic concerns.
Nonetheless, these criticisms also pertain to many other theoretical approaches to textual
Mrs Wilcox especially is an invaluable literary creation in whom to read autism,
for she complies with the definition Forster later proposed of the “round character”; she is
“capable of surprising in a convincing way” (1927, p.81) as she calms, charms and
mystifies the other characters. Forster identified “flat” characters as “constructed around
a single idea or quality; when there is more than one factor in them, we get the beginning
of a curve towards the round” (Ibid.). Even if, to suggest a bolder interpretation, Forster’s
portrait of Mrs Wilcox was informed by “a single idea” of autism as apparent (prior to the
condition’s recognition by psychologists) in some individuals, it is presented, in this
character’s roundness, as a quality, andher repetitive routines might further be related to
her “unvarying virtue” (Forster, 1910, p.99).
In his two challenging and ambitious new books, Fitzgerald’s achievement is
perhaps in changing not our perceptions of these iconic biographical subjects, but our
perceptions of autism. Diagnoses of HFA/ASP are rapidly increasing; Fitzgerald asserts
that “The individuals discussed in [these books] are the kind of people who have been
missed in the past” (2004, p.36). It is important to remember, however, that his subjects
all led productive, thus, on their terms, relatively fulfilling lives without diagnosis. Had
these people been labeled, would the seeds of their genius have flourished as they did?
After summarizing William Butler Yeats’ genetic heritage, delayed language
development, difficulties in relationships, consuming interests, absent-mindedness,
possible depression and mild motor clumsiness, Fitzgerald concludes that he “meets the
criteria for HFA/ASP”, and proposes: “It is necessary now for literary critics to examine
the effect of Yeats’ psychopathology on his poetry and other writings” (2004, p.193).
Perhaps these become still more valuable, for in considering Yeats within a range of
other biographical, cultural and theoretical terms, they implicitly testify, like
Glendinning’s biography of Swift and Davenport-Hines’ of Auden, that discernible
manifestations of autism, even if genetically inherent, might not define every moment in
an individual’s life and mind. Similarly, Emerson’s reflections, like Howards End and
Krapp’s Last Tape, provide intriguing instances of how literary philosophy, freer from
ideals of certainty, might advance valuable observations of human traits, and even
conditions, centuries ahead of science.
In Howards End, Forster writes: “Only connect the prose and the passion, and
both will be exalted” (p.188). Fitzgerald’s books, despite the rigid conclusions that may
frustrate readers approaching them on terms associated more with ‘the arts’, might yet
prove significant early texts in a scientific field that schools of cultural and literary theory
could ill-afford to ignore; equally, perhaps science can, likewise, ill-afford to ignore
Note
Thanks to Julia Oakes, Tom Patrick and Mary Eagleton for their advice, and to Professor David Pierce for introducing me to the work of Forster and Beckett as an undergraduate.
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